


A Day in the Life of Seraphina Picquery, President of MACUSA

by Azaelia_Foxburr



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Fluff and Crack, Gen, M/M, and a smattering of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 13:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9739463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azaelia_Foxburr/pseuds/Azaelia_Foxburr
Summary: A day in the life of everyone's favourite Madam President, filled with copious amounts of caffeine, repressed violent urges, and gossiping.





	

**Author's Note:**

> In other words, Seraphina is a Queen, Graves is five years old, and Newt is hopeless, but I love them all anyway. 
> 
> Also featuring a gratuitously long cameo of Queenie Goldstein, because I have no self control when it comes to my favourite Leglimens.
> 
> Take this as a belated Valentine's gift to the fandom and Seraphina Picquery, who is a boss-ass witch and deserves more love :')

Seraphina Picquery is the most powerful witch in her generation. Not the most powerful president MACUSA has ever had, perhaps, but certainly nothing to scoff at. And she is undeniably the youngest and arguably the most efficient. She runs a tight ship, ruling with an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove; within her first three years in office crime rates have halved while case closures have doubled. Seraphina Picquery is poised and eloquent and forever immaculate, robes pressed and hair coiffed and headdress never the slightest bit askew. Some say she must have made a deal with the devil, to accomplish all she has. Others say she must be the devil herself. Grown men have been known to tremble under her gaze and weep at the devastating raise of an eyebrow. Seraphina Picquery is beautiful and terrible and powerful.

Seraphina Picquery is striding through MACUSA's halls at two o-bloody-clock in the morning and she wants to claw someone's eyes out with her perfectly manicured fingernails. Maybe even her own. At least then she wouldn't have to deal with this fiasco.

She'd been very rudely awakened, only twenty minutes before, by an urgent Howler screaming blue murder about a Grindelwald sighting. Right into her ear.

Ah, the perks of being President.

Seraphina sweeps into the chaotic boardroom, taking an underling's offered cup of coffee without breaking her stride. The cacophony of voices dies down immediately upon her entrance, and she seats herself at the head of the long mahogany table.

"Tell me everything we know about the situation," Seraphina demands, cutting straight to the chase. Her question is directed at one Percival Graves, MACUSA's current Director of Magical Security and coincidentally one of Seraphina's oldest friends. Graves' dark brows are creased as he waves his wand to conjure a projection of what appears to be a large country house.

"This is where Grindelwald has reportedly been sighted. It's an old country house out in Long Island; belongs to a wizard by the name of Phileas Jenkins, eighty-nine this year. The report was made by a young witch living in the vicinity. A blond man of Grindelwald's height and build was seen entering the house not half an hour ago. Jenkins has no known affiliations to any anti-statute organizations, but in this case we will take every necessary precaution." 

Seraphina nods decisively, taking in the information as her brain switches effortlessly into tactical mode, honed by years of experience out in the field. "I want all hands on deck for this case. Senior Aurors are to apparate directly to the house and search the building. The rest of you are to set up shielding and anti-apparition wards within a three mile radius of Jenkins' house, then scope the perimeter. If it really is Grindelwald, we are _not_ going to let him slip through our fingers."

Seraphina studies the faces of the aurors standing before her, gratified to see grim determination writ on every one as they nod silently at her. She allows her smile to curl into something sharp and feral.

"Good. Now let's get that bastard."

 

It's nearly three hours later when Seraphina finally stumbles wearily home. The brief high from the coffee and the chase has long since faded, leaving her all but dead on her feet.

Thank Merlin, the Grindelwald sighting had turned out to be a false alarm. They had burst into the sitting room to find old Phileas Jenkins sitting in an arm chair by the fire, chatting to his nephew, just come fresh off a boat from Liverpool. Matthew Jenkins had proved to be a thoroughly pleasant and law-abiding young man, with the only misfortune of resembling the greatest Dark Wizard of their time from behind and being spotted by a witch half-drunk on giggle water after a night about town.

Seraphina barely musters the energy to change into her night clothes before slumping gracelessly onto the bed, wincing when the fall jars her freshly bruised knee.

She might have...panicked a little, when she and Graves had been hiding in Jenkins' tool shed. A trip over a carelessly placed bucket had sent Seraphina sprawling to the floor, taking Graves down with her.

In her defence, the rake made for a _very_ convincing silhouette of a person in the dark.

Graves had thought it absolutely hilarious of course, even when Seraphina hurled the bucket at him with a vengeance. He'd caught it just fine, damn his auror reflexes, and simply continued laughing. She'd managed to refrain from punching his smug face, but it had been a near thing.

Instead, Seraphina had taken vindictive pleasure in the sniggers Graves got from the senior aurors when they gathered outside the house, which left him puzzled until Auror Goldstein was kind enough to tell him that his hair had been all ruffled and sticking up. "Like a cockatoo," Seraphina had whispered in his ear, and received a glower and a middle finger in reply.

"Like a cockatoo," Seraphina murmurs nonsensically into her pillow, and falls asleep with the image in her mind and a smile on her face.

 

She wakes to sunlight streaming through the curtains and an insistent tapping on the window. Wrapping her embroidered kimono around herself she proceeds to draw the curtains fully and flings open the French windows. The source of the tapping noise turns out to be a delivery owl bearing a copy of the New York Ghost, which it promptly drops into Seraphina's hands. She pays the owl with a Dragot and a treat, and simply stands at her window for a moment as she watches the bird flap away into the rose tinged dawn. The window opens out to the back garden, alive with bright blooms of rhododendrons and lilies and hydrangeas. The cool air is heavy with their perfume as they glisten in the early rays of sun, still wet with morning dew. Seraphina will be the first to admit her townhouse is a little out of the way and perhaps not entirely practical for a single witch living by herself, but the garden makes it entirely worth it, in her opinion. Certainly better than that cramped excuse of an apartment Graves calls home, anyway.

She whips up a quick breakfast in the kitchen before heading back out into the garden, sitting at the wooden outdoor table she'd bought expressly for this purpose. She spends a leisurely half hour in her garden, taking bites of toast as she browses through the pages of the New York Ghost and ignores the occasional garden gnome that runs over her bare feet. The Grindelwald sighting has made first page, complete with a picture of an abashed Matthew Jenkins and another of a sombre looking Graves, hair still slightly puffy despite having attempted to comb it down. Seraphina smiles into her coffee.

 

("A woman's make-up is her armour," her mother had once said, and the words have stuck with Seraphina ever since.

They are what echoes at the back of her mind as she dons her robes, feeling the smooth fluttering ripple of the emerald silk over her skin; as she dabs rosewater on the soft skin of her inner wrists and behind her ears; as she brushes and coils her hair around her skull and wraps her headdress with expert hands. The words are in the click of pearl earrings being fastened in place, in the arch of her carefully shaped brows and the curve of her lips lined in pink.

A woman's make-up is her armour, and Seraphina will not allow for any cracks in hers.)

 

She reaches her office at a quarter to eight and is pleasantly greeted by the portrait of Hildebrand Stilton, 16th President of MACUSA, staunchly declaring, "You look like death."

"I don't want to hear that from a portrait of a man who's actually dead, thank you," Seraphina shoots back a little peevishly, knowing that make-up may be able to conceal the circles under her eyes but not even magic has found a way to remedy bloodshot eyes overnight.

"He's right you know," titters Dorothea Chaseby, MACUSA's 28th President, "You work too hard, my dear. When's the last time you've been on a date, hmm?"

"There's been a dark wizard running around, you know. Wrecking havoc, threatening the statute of secrecy and all that. I've been a bit busy going after him."

"How about that nice Percival Graves?" Dorothea continues, ignoring Seraphina completely. "Descended from one of the Original Twelve, isn't he? And _so_ handsome," she adds with a saucy wink that is no less terrifying for coming from an 80 year old woman made of oil on canvas. Or perhaps because of it.

"Don't bother with that one, Dorothea," another portrait interrupts, "The man's already taken--Seraphina's said so."

"That certainly wouldn't have stopped _me_."

"How about that man...Delgato, from accounting?"

"Don't be an idiot, Charlie--"

Seraphina lets the conversation fly over her head and fade into background noise, thoroughly accustomed to the bickering banter of the previous presidents. They'll quieten after a while, she knows; they just like hearing the sound of their own voices every so often.

Sure enough, the silence of her office is soon only broken by the scribble of her quill and the rustle of flipping paper. She's gotten through about half a dozen reports and is beginning to feel cautiously optimistic. If this keeps up, she reckons she just might finish the whole dratted pile of paperwork in her in-tray by the end of the day.

Of course, because the universe is a spiteful little shit, that is the precise moment Seraphina hears a throaty, thunderous bellow reverberate throughout the building.

Seraphina pauses in her writing for a moment, before promptly putting her quill back to the paper. Maybe if she just...ignores this hard enough, it'll go away. Yes, ignore it hard enough. Seraphina's quill moves a little faster.

A second bellow erupts from below, this time accompanied by a shrill scream.

As if on cue, a rather harried Auror Goldstein bursts into the office, hair disheveled and panting slightly. She sees Seraphina's patently unamused expression and blanches a little.

"It-it's Newt Scamander, Madam President."

This is turning out to be a long day.

"You'd better take me to him," Seraphina stands from her desk with a sigh.

"Of course, Madam President," Auror Goldstein bites her lip, "But you might-uh. You might want to wear these." She produces what at first glance appears to be a pair of misshapen buckets, but on closer examination reveals itself to be a pair of revoltingly orange gum boots. Seraphina notices then that Goldstein is wearing a similar pair in pastel pink.

"Is this the only pair left?" Seraphina asks, in a tone that could almost be considered mulish coming from anyone else.

"I'm afraid so, Madam," Goldstein replies, then visibly hesitates before adding, "But I really would advise you to wear them. It's a little...damp downstairs at the moment."

Merlin, just what did Scamander _do_ this time?

 

When the Erumpent has finally been returned into the case and the lower levels drained, after an eventful half hour Seraphina has no doubt will go down in the unofficial annals of MACUSA's office gossip history, she cuts across the lobby to find the man of the hour. Along the way she passes a paper mouse delivery pipe that has almost been completely flattened, and suspects her paperwork is going to arrive a little more crumpled than usual for the next few months. The infamous magizoologist is standing in a corner, a little hunched in on himself as always, one hand holding on to that thrice damned suitcase of his and the other clutching a squirming Niffler. When he catches sight of Seraphina his face falls, and she would be hard pressed to say if Scamander of his Niffler looked more put upon at that moment.

"Perhaps you'd like to say something for yourself, Mr Scamander?"

"Terribly sorry, Madam President," Scamander murmurs apologetically, scuffing at his shoes like an errant schoolboy, "It won't happen again, truly, I promise."

"How odd," Seraphina carries on pleasantly, "That's exactly what you told me the last time this happened. And the time before that. And the time before that. And the--"

"Yes, I think you've made your point, Madam President," Scamander interrupts a little testily. But he goes back to looking suitably cowed when Seraphina raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him.

"What I fail to understand, Mr Scamander," Seraphina sighs "Is how this could have happened. I distinctly remember MACUSA issued you a specially customised Unbreakable Lock after the last incident. Made for the express purpose of keeping those creatures in your case. Am I not correct?"

"Well. Y-es..." Scamander admits, looking shiftily from side to side, and Seraphina doesn't have to be a Legilimens to hear the unspoken "but" tacked on to the end of his sentence.

Seraphina holds up a silencing hand before the man can ramble off any more excuses. The worst thing about the whole situation, Seraphina thinks, is that he _means_ it. All of his animals rampages, no matter how disastrous, have never been intentional. And when he promises not to let it happen again, he really does intend to keep his promise. But it will happen, just the same. "Just. Promise me this _will_ actually be the last time. Don't think I won't ban you from entering MACUSA, Mr Scamander. I won't hesitate if I have to." And with that final warning, Seraphina departs. 

She's nearly reached the elevator when the heel of her shoe lands in something soft and squishy. A lesser woman might have screamed, but Seraphina Picquery simply pries her shoe from the pat of Erumpent dung and continues on her way.

She does, however, briefly indulge in a fantasy of strangling Newt Scamander with his own scarf and burying the corpse in a pile of Erumpent dung. It's quite a satisfying image.

 

Seraphina thinks she's completely justified in taking an early lunch break, given the morning she's had. The portraits of the former Presidents stare down at her disapprovingly from her office walls, but she simply rolls her eyes and draws the silence-charmed curtains over their frames with a wave of her hand before they can protest. (A handy little device installed by Hildebrand Stilton himself after experiencing the nuisance of portraits constantly butting in with unwanted advice on both personal and presidential matters. Not that the man seems the remember how it felt to be on the receiving end of unwanted advice these days, based on the many pointed comments he makes to Seraphina daily.)

She apparates to Jo's Diner, a well-established haunt among MACUSA employees. It's hardly The Plaza, but it's warm and honest, worn soft around the edges with time. She slides into a booth and is attended to almost immediately by Tilly Boothroyd, who's been working at Jo's as long as Seraphina's been going there.

"What can I getcha, Madam President?" the perky redhead waitress asks.

"I think I'll have the buttermilk pancakes today, with fried potatoes and an extra rasher of bacon on the side and a cup of black coffee, please."

"Tough day at work, huh?" Tilly titters sympathetically, familiar enough with Seraphina's orders to know she only orders fried food when she's in need of a bit of a pick-me-up.

"You don't know the half of it." Seraphina laughs wryly.

"I'll make sure you get your order in double time, don't worry," Tilly reassures with a conspiratorial wink, and then is on her way.

The diner is still mostly empty, Seraphina being a bit earlier than the lunchtime rush, and she takes the opportunity to cast a quick Glamour on herself before she can be recognised. The sounds of sizzling oil and coffee shop banter and the smells of frying bacon and freshly roasted coffee are familiar and grounding, and Seraphina allows herself to unwind a little in the privacy of her booth and disguise.

As promised, her order appears in almost no time at all, and Seraphina's steadily making her way through her second pancake when she sees Graves enter the diner. She's about to remove her Glamour and invite him to join her when she realises he's not alone; following closely behind her Director of Magical Security is none other than Newt Scamander himself. The man looks a tad nervous as always, but relaxes enough to give Graves a broad smile when the other man helps him out of his coat.

Seraphina decides to leave her Glamour in place and watches the two men with a smirk. Oh this is going to be _interesting_. As if the universe is trying to make amends for Seraphina's taxing morning, the two men seat themselves in the booth right next to hers in prime eavesdropping territory.

After they've placed their orders (Or rather, Graves places their orders while Newt fiddles surreptitiously with the lock on his case, and somehow Graves knows exactly what his companion wants without so much as a word passing between them. _How sickeningly domestic_ , Seraphina thinks gleefully.) Graves gives a small sigh of exasperation, even as he leans forward to take Scamander's hands into his own.

"Newt, what have we discussed about visiting me at work with the animals?"

"Oh Perce, I _am_ sorry," Scamander nearly trips over his words in his haste to explain "Myrtle didn't _mean_ it; you must know that. She probably just smelt food or something, and she's got a horrible penchant for human food, even though it's not good for her in the least. I'm sorry she chased Abernathy around the lobby--I think it was the danish he was holding--is he quite alright? And I'm sorry about the flooding. Was it very hard to fix? I hope there won't be lasting damage. Otherwise I can always--"

"Newt," Graves interrupts, his thumb drawing circles on the other man's hand in a clear attempt to sooth him "You're babbling again. There's no need to keep apologising for Myrtle ( _There_ _certainly is_ , Seraphina thinks a tad indignantly, remembering her heels) I just want to know why the lock wasn't on your case, as we agreed."

Newt ducks his head, a little nervously. "D-Dougal just missed you, is all. He wanted to check up on you when I visited. You know how he gets."

Graves' brows furrow rather ominously at that, his face clouding over in an expression that reminds Seraphina all too well of why he got his nickname back in Ilvermorny. "Missed me?" Graves hisses, incredulous "That demiguise of yours saw me not two days ago! And napped on me for five hours straight! I ended up falling asleep and wasting a whole afternoon of work!"

Little firecracker Graves, the older students had teasingly called him. Clearly the moniker still fit.

Scamander stiffens at the outburst and abruptly withdraws his hands from Graves' hold. "You needed the rest," he replies coolly, in a tone more firm than Seraphina has ever heard from him. Clearly the man has more backbone than she'd given him credit for. She nods approvingly into her cup of coffee, thinking her workaholic friend might've finally met his match in this magizoologist.

Their orders arrive and the two men spend their meal in silence, both clearly rankled but neither willing to be the first to give in. Eventually Graves checks his pocket watch and straightens with a start.

"I ought to get going," he tells Scamander. When the other man only nods stiffly in response, Graves rubs the bridge of his nose, clearly uncomfortable with parting on such a sour note but unsure how to rectify the situation.

"Look, we'll talk more about this when I get home, alright?"

Seraphina blinks.

"...Alright," Scamander concedes, and lets Graves press a kiss to his forehead.

They walk out of the diner together, leaving Seraphina to stir her coffee contemplatively as she considers this new development.

She's known about the relationship for months, of course. She'd squeezed it out of Graves some time ago, just for the fun of seeing him squirm, as if his increasingly good temper and fewer late nights in the office hadn't given him away months ago. But to think they were living together...she hadn't realised things had progressed quite so far.

She's delighted by this new information, of course. It shows Seraphina can expect a wedding invite and an opportunity to be Best Man sometime soon. But clearly the two have yet to work out how to deal with conflict. Seraphina determines to speak to Graves about this at length at the earliest possible moment; she's hardly going to sit idly by and watch the love of her friend's life slip away from him because of a silly squabble.

 _Men_ , Seraphina thinks despairingly, and apparates back to her office with a crack.

 

Three o'clock rolls around, along with Seraphina's tea trolley. It's one of the few perks of her position as President, to get a lovely proper tea set with pastries full of jam and cream and actual tea, rather than the crap swill water found in the cafeteria.

As she begins to make her usual cup of afternoon tea, Seraphina allows her mind to drift to the wide, open plains of Arizona. She's a New Yorker born and bred, but her grandmother had been from the south, and as a young girl she'd spent many summers on her grandmother's farm in Arizona. Sometimes she dreams of quitting her job and moving there, leaving the polished marble floors and concrete walls of MACUSA for a little wooden house in the middle of nowhere. She'd sit on the back porch swing, her afternoon darjeeling replaced by an ice cold glass of sweet tea, watching the cattle graze and the occasional thunderbird glide past. It would be nice, Seraphina thinks. Peaceful. Devoid of troublemakers and emotionally constipated colleagues.

She raises the teacup to her lips when she realises the familiar heavy weight of her mother's gold watch is missing from her left wrist. When she glances down there is only a strip of olive brown skin where the watch usually sits.

The Niffler.                                                           

Very calmly, Seraphina stands up and flings the teacup against the wall, where the china shatters satisfyingly into a million pieces.

"Temper, m'dear," one of the portraits calls out a little sleepily.

She swiftly vanishes the tea before it can seep into the carpet and repairs the cup, then sits back down to nibble daintily on a scone. 

 

It's perhaps an hour later when Queenie Goldstein enters Seraphina's office with a gentle knock on the door, having come to collect the tea trolley. Seraphina looks up from her work to grace her with a smile that is immediately returned. She likes Queenie; the woman is smart, charming, strong, and enjoys a good piece of gossip as much as she does. She is, Seraphina thinks, completely wasted in Wand Permits. But she knows Queenie likes it there, out of the spotlight and the drama of office politics. And if her desk job at Wand Permits allows Queenie the free time to put together the President's tea tray...Well, she's hardly going to protest that.

"The scones today were new. Did you bake them?" Seraphina asks as she takes a bite of the last one.

"Oh! No--I uh, I bought them," Queenie replies, turning pink.

Well, well. 

"Where from?" Seraphina inquires, deliberately keeping her voice casual and her mental shields up, lest Queenie get a glimpse of her thoughts.

Queenie turns even pinker. "Just a little bakery near Central Park."

Jacob Kowalski's bakery, Seraphina is well aware. The No-Maj who'd had to be obliviated after the Grindelwald case and one of the most severe breaches in the Statute of Secrecy in the past century. She knew Queenie visited the place frequently, had in fact seen her there the one time she'd gone down to the bakery herself to see how the No-Maj was faring.

She knows she ought to put a stop to Queenie's visits, but she hasn't the heart. She isn't a complete ice cold bitch, despite what some of the rumours about her would have people think. Deciding she's flustered the poor girl enough for one day (though it was always tempting to tease someone who flushed as prettily as Queenie), Seraphina lets her off the hook.

"Well, tea was excellent as usual. Thank you, Goldstein."

"My pleasure, Madam President," Queenie beams, voice tinged slightly with relief, "After all, a hardworking lady like yourself needs to keep your strength up. Especially after a day like this one."

Seraphina winces slightly. "You've heard about the Scamander incident, I presume?"

"How could I not?" Queenie laughs "First I hear a sound like a foghorn and the next moment I'm all but ankle-deep in water. I just about thought the apocalypse had come runnin'!"

"The man certainly knows how to keep things interesting, I'll give him that," Seraphina shakes her head ruefully.

"It's probably why Director Graves likes him so much," Queenie grins, eyes twinkling, "Though I don't think he's too happy with Newt right now."

"Oh?"

"He's been going around the place with a face like a thundercloud the whole afternoon. Just about ripped Teenie's head off for talking to me a little too long during lunch break."

Seraphina makes a sympathetic humming sound. Graves can have a real mouth on him when he wants, though his bark is far worse than his bite.

The conversation turns to more idle gossip after that, as Queenie and Seraphina chat lightly about everything from Abernathy's new haircut ("Absolutely horrible, makes his head look about as flat as a mortarboard.") to the new lunch menu ("Pumpkin casserole! I don't know what they're thinking." "I heard the panna cotta isn't half bad, though." "Not as good as mine, Madam President, if you don't mind me saying."). Queenie finally drags herself away at nearly half past four, with a jaunty wave over her shoulder and a promise to let Seraphina try her panna cotta sometime soon.

Once she's left, Seraphina rests her elbows on her desk and steeples her fingers thoughfully. Queenie's anecdote about Graves has strengthened her resolve to talk to her friend about his relationship at the earliest possible opportunity. She'd hardly be a good President if she couldn't stop her Director of Magical Security ruining office dynamics because of his emotional constipation, after all.

 

Seraphina Picquery is the second biggest gossip in MACUSA (Queenie Goldstein being of course, the first). Seraphina Picquery is also exceptionally gifted at hearing charms. Whether these two facts are related remains neither here nor there, but the result is that Seraphina's favourite past time, on days when work is slow or particularly tedious, is to cast an extensive hearing charm throughout the office and listen in on the latest bits of news. It's hardly the most president-like thing to do, she knows. But when she'd gotten the job all anyone had ever said was how important it was going to be; they'd never warned her about the boredom. Some days Seraphina feels her entire job consists of reading and signing off reports to cover up the incompetence of MACUA's employees (The Great John-Jinxing Competition of '25 comes to mind). Some of the portraits might huff and sniff about it, muttering words like "improprierty" and generally acting holier-than-thou, but there are also those like Dorothea who unabashedly join in on Seraphina's "intel gathering", going as far as to visit other paintings around the building to report back to her. Between the portraits and the hearing charms and Queenie, Seraphina has built a rather extensive network. She envies Queenie's mobility sometimes; bureaucracy dicatates she cannot roam the halls freely, chatting and picking up tidbits of gossip from everyone she meets. But her current system is more than serviceable, and if it helps with her reputation of omniscience, well. Seraphina has always believed in instilling a healthy dose of fear in subordinates.

And it is with her omniscient powers/scary good hearing charms that she is able to pinpoint the exact moment Percival Graves walks past her office. She closes her eyes and casts her mind out, weaving through the babble of voices from all corners of the auror bullpen ("Did you hear Abernathy's managed to snag a date with Lopez?" "With hair like that, really? What is the girl _thinking_.") to pick out the familiar gruff tenor of her friend. She tracks his way through the bullpen, a journey punctuated with quick goodbyes to various underlings and the rhythm of footsteps purposefully striding across the marble floor. When she hears the footsteps right outside her office, a flick of her wrist flings the door open to reveal a thoroughly unimpressed Graves.

"Have dinner with me, Director?" she asks, and smiles at the answering sigh.

 

Dinner ends up being a casual affair of pasta and wine in the candle-lit dimness of Seraphina's dining room. It'd become a ritual between them, somewhere along the way, to have dinner together at least once a month. At first it had been for the sense of familiarity; after 7 years of sharing meals with a few hundred rowdy teenagers, eating alone in your own crap first apartment seemed pretty damn sad. Eventually though, as they rose up the ranks, their dinners became a time to relax, to shed the mantle of Madame President and Director. When they ate dinner together they were always just Sera and Percy again, like on the first day of Ilvermorny when Seraphina was a slip of a girl with golden pigtails and Percival a pipsqueak of an eleven year old with a temper like fire.

They whinge about work, trading horror stories about incompetent minions and stacks of paperwork. They discuss the latest political developments, both abroad and at home. They unabashedly gossip about their former Ilvermorny school mates, animatedly delving into the more scandalous stories. Percival, being his workaholic self, rarely catches onto the latest tawdry tales of America's magical society, but he's as eager to listen in on a juicy piece of gossip as any old fishwife. Seraphina knows it's part of the reason why they're such good friends, as much as he may try to deny it.

They're halfway through their dessert of chocolate fudge cake when Seraphina decides to get to the real purpose of why she's invited Percival over tonight.

"How are things with Scamander?" she asks, purposefully not glancing at him and focusing on swirling the ruby red wine in her glass instead.

The temperature in the room suddenly seems to drop a few degrees. "Splendid, thank you for asking," Percival replies after a pause.

Seraphina gives her wine glass another swirl. "Really? I heard there was a little ah...trouble in paradise."

"Where did you hear that from?" Percival demands, almost accusingly "We've been having no trouble at all. None whatsoever. And I wish people would mind their own damn business instead of making up these baseless rumours!" The candles flicker slightly, causing shadows to dance around the room.

Seraphina resists the urge to roll her eyes at Percival's theatrics, and instead levels him with A Look. One which expressly says _oh because your tone right now isn't defensive and doesn't imply trouble at all, does it?_

"I couldn't help but overhear your lover's tiff this afternoon at Jo's, Percy."

He gapes a little at this announcement, jaw slack in an utterly unattractive way that causes him to resemble a fish more than anything else. "You--you _eavesdropper_!" he eventually manages to sputter indignantly.

"I must say, I completely agree with Scamander in this," Seraphina says, not even bothering to deny Percival's accusation.

"The last time I checked, you were _my_ friend, Sera," Percival's tone is almost petulant, and Seraphina does roll her eyes this time because no, not dealing with a five year old _at all_.

"Being your friend includes pointing out when you're _wrong_ , you know." Seraphina replies bitingly.

A strained silence descends upon the room as Percival stabs viciously at his cake and Seraphina pours herself another glass of wine.

But there isn't any real tension; Percival may be a stubborn prig, but he knows when to admit he's wrong. Seraphina knows that Percival knows she and Scamander are right about this, and he'll come round soon enough. He just has to sulk through it first.

(There was only one dinner that had ever truly been fraught with tension--the dinner in the month after Percival's rescue from Grindelwald.

That had been a miserable dinner, horrible and messy and filled with shouting and screaming. Percival had been bleeding with rage and hurt, the freshness of his trauma sharpening his words and amplifying his anger. And Seraphina had felt so, so guilty, ashamed by how irreparably she had failed her friend.

The night had eventually ended with Seraphina shocking Percival into silence by crying, something he'd never seen her do in all the years they'd known each other. Percival, bless his emotionally stunted soul, had let her cry it out and given her his handkerchief, before pulling out a bottle of Dragon Fire from the liquor cabinet and getting them both sloshed to the gills.)

Seraphina sees Percival's face slowly begin to clear as he mulishly takes a few more bites of chocolate cake, until she knows the frown etched on his face is more for show than anything else. Sensing the ice is thawing at last, she takes the opportunity to melt Percival down completely.

"He _cares_ about you, Percy," she tells him gently, lightly resting her hand on top of his, "You know you work yourself too hard sometimes, and he worries. Surely you cannot blame him for that?"

Percival seems to deflate entirely upon hearing her words and lets out a long sigh, all pretense of anger gone.

"No, I suppose I cannot."

"Apologise, and speak to him about it properly," Seraphina leans back in her chair, satisfied that her work here has been done "Proper communication is the key to a healthy relationship."

"Yes, mother," Percival drawls sarcastically, and gets a kick in the shin in retaliation. He rises from his seat and stretches, joints popping. "I suppose I ought to make a move now, seeing as my session with the counsellor is over."

"Indeed. I would hardly want to keep you from going home to your _lovely_ magizoologist, after all," Seraphina smiles beatifically, basking in Percival's expression of gobsmacked mortification, "And do ask Scamander to get my wrist watch back. That niffler of his is a menace."

 

The next morning, when Graves presses the watch into her hand, Seraphina takes an unholy glee in the ruddy flush that suffuses his face.

"Not. A. Word." he grits out, and hurries past her.

Seraphina's answering laughter echoes throughout the corridor.

**Author's Note:**

> Abernathy seems to bear the brunt of the fandom's ridicule, doesn't he? I don't know why and I didn't plan to but I kind of did too so oh well. Sorry Abernathy. There's just something so delightfully pick-on-able about you.


End file.
